1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to accessing a target database and more particularly relates to accessing the target database with an inquiry that is not formatted as a database query statement.
2. Description of the Related Art
Databases are used to store large amounts of information for organizations and individuals. For example, a commercial database may store the customer records for a plurality of customers of an organization, as well as a plurality of transactions relating to each customer. The typical database is organized using plurality of schema. For example, the database may be organized as one or more tables, with one or more table views. In addition, the tables and views may comprise one or more columns or attributes and one or more rows as is well known to those skilled in the art. The schema of the database may comprise tables, views, and the like.
A user of the database data often desires to access only a subset of the database data. In addition the user may desire to organize the accessed subset in a convenient organization targeting selected information, although the convenient organization may be very differently from the database. The user will typically employ a query statement to direct a database application to access and organize the target database data. The query statement may specify the subset of data to be accessed, operations to perform on the accessed data, and/or an output organization for the accessed data. An example of a query statement is a structured query language (“SQL”) statement. Variations of the SQL statements are used by a number of database applications including the DB2™ Product Family from INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES® Corporation (“IBM”) of Armonk, N.Y.
The query statement may be communicated directly to a database application or incorporated in a process that is used to access the database. For example, a user at utility company print bills for utility customers from a database by executing a bill printing process. The bill printing process may use one or more SQL statements to access data for current customers and past customers with an outstanding balance, calculate current balances, and print each customer's name, address, account number, and balance in an easily readable organization.
Unfortunately, in addition to database applications, many additional software applications may also require access to a target database. For example, it may be desirable for software applications written in C, C++, Java, Cobol, and the like, and/or communication formats such as extensible mark language (“XML”) and hypertext markup language (“HTML”) to access the target database. Yet these software applications and requests may be unable to easily create the query statements required for access to the target database.
From the foregoing discussion, it should be apparent that a need exists for an apparatus, system, and method that access a target database using a request that is not formatted as a target database query statement. Beneficially, such an apparatus, system, and method would allow a plurality of software applications and communication formats to access the target database.